Understand
by Meraculas
Summary: The Professor would try to help, he would say that he understood, but he knew the truth. No one could ever understand. No one had been there to be able to understand.


**Disclaimer:** I do not, in any way own any of the characters or events portrayed in this story. Everything belongs to their respected owners.

**A/N:** Some people might remember the Generation X tv pilot/film from back in 1996. This story incorporates some of the plot of that pilot/film with the X-Men films.

**Generation X:** A made-for-television film based on the Generation X comic book series from Marvel. The film featured Banshee and Emma Frost as the headmasters of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and M, Skin, Mondo, Jubilee and two new characters Buff and Refrax as students (Chamber and Husk were not written in because the budget didn't allow for the special effects their powers required). The team battled a mad scientist who used a machine to develop psychic powers. The extremely low-budget film was scoffed at by fans and plans to develop a syndicated series were abandoned.

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**Understand**

The Professor would try to help, he would say that he understood, but he knew the truth. No one could ever understand. No one had been there to be able to understand.

That wasn't entirely true. There had been some other people who had been there, who could possibly understand. But to what possible degree would they understand? They hadn't faced everything he had gone through. He only kept in touch with one of them, so he would only be able to speak with that one person. But would he really sit and listen to him?

He knew he should have been focusing on other things, like Jean having died, but he couldn't. He expected, that first night (well the first night he had managed to get some sleep) that he would only see the water engulfing the redheaded woman he loved. That wasn't what he saw though, he saw the labs, the cells, the bars, the concrete and metal, and he saw that face. Not just _his_ face, but all of their faces. Each night, after waking from those nightmares of two different sets of memories inter mingled, he would sit back against the headboard, knees to his chest, crying (very unmanly he would admit, but no one was there to watch and laugh at him). He had already been to the med lab for dehydration this past month. The professor just assumed it was from having lost Jean, he was wrong. His nightmares had become so terrifying that at times he completely forgot about Jean, forgot she even had been alive. The terror was just too much. He needed someone who could understand, someone he could talk to, someone who had lived through what he lived through.

Yes, the professor could read his mind. Experience what he had experienced to such a degree that it would feel as if the professor had been there himself, but it wouldn't be the same. The emotion wouldn't be real, the terror wouldn't be genuine.

There was only one person he could call. No, he could pick between two people. With Jean dead the second person could now be contacted. Jean would never have let him call the second person before. And, it was for the second person that he was actually glad that Jean was dead. It was wrong for him to think that, but it was true. Jean would have eaten his balls for breakfast if he had called that second person. He was good friends with the first person, but the second person. He hadn't spoken to the second person in nearly, what, almost ten years now.

Mind made up, he closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep. He prayed before he did, though. He prayed, just like every night, that this would be the night the nightmares stopped. That it would be on this night that he wouldn't have to drink from the water bottle he now kept at his bedside, so that he wouldn't get dehydrated. That it would be this night that, when he, Scott Summers, awoke, everything would be back to normal.

It wasn't.

He couldn't see. It wasn't that his eyes were closed it was that when he opened them something was in his way. Something was always in his way. He clawed at the blindfold over his eyes, and then thought better of it. He closed his eyes again, and then opened them. This time, everything had a red tint to it. The normally grey, concrete walls had a tint of red to them. The metal bars that acted as a door, they too had some red to them. He looked up, and there _he_ was. He was looking at him coolly, as if trying to figure out the answer to a riddle. Then he laughed, he started to speak, but there was no sound coming out of his mouth. Crushing his eyes shut, he awoke with a start.

His forehead was covered in sweat and he had a horrible chill. Pressing his back against the headboard, as if to make sure no one could sneak up behind him, he gathered his knees to his chest and began to cry. There was nothing mature about it, there wasn't supposed to be. He wanted to be sixteen again, carefree, alive, free, and_ normal_. He didn't want the government to know his name. He didn't want some creepy cat like guy chasing after him through his school's hallway. He hadn't wanted to take Spanish that day either.

He stayed in that position crying, until he heard a soft knock on his bedroom door. He looked at the time, the red numbers blinked back at him, 5:20am. Who was up at this hour? Oh right, him. The knock came again, he hoped that the person would go away, think he was fast asleep, as he should have been. The third knock came with the soft, feminine command of opening the door before it was broken down. Something he never expected to hear come from the person on the other side of his bedroom door.

He rose from his bed, and opened the door. Once the door was fully open, the small Asian girl (he wasn't trying to be racist, that just what she was) launched herself at him. Her face collided with his bare chest, and he could tell she was crying. She pulled away suddenly and whipped her sleeve across her face to dry her eyes.

She wanted to know how he dealt with it, she had heard him crying, and so why she was asking him, he wasn't certain. He knew he couldn't lie to her, so he told her, the honest to goodness truth. He wasn't dealing with it. Her look of surprise was slightly shocking, he had never seen her look surprised about anything, but it was comforting. She then wanted to know if he ever had nightmares about what happened to them at Alkali Lake, and this time he had to lie. It wasn't a lie born from self-preservation, it was a lie built from guilt and fear. He told her that he had never had any such nightmares. Then she posed her final question. She wanted to know why he had been crying. This time, Scott Summers neither lied nor told the truth. This time he told Jubilee it was late and she had to get back to bed.

He could see the disappointment in her eyes. He was known throughout the school for always answering a question, and while harsh in his discipline, nice to the students and unwilling to hand out discipline. It is true, she wasn't a true member of the X-Men, or the younger group of mutants at the school, they called themselves the New Mutants. She was a member of Generation X, and the only reason she had been at the school when _he_ had attacked it was because his two comrades, who both ran Generation X, were needed elsewhere, somewhere where their students couldn't go. But they were getting back today, so he only had to make up his mind as to which he would speak to. That wasn't true though, he had already made his decision.

Later that day, once his friends and the leaders of Generation X arrived to pick up their students, he pulled one of the teachers aside. He asked her if they could talk somewhere in private. She said yes. He led her to his bedroom, the place that had become his fortress over the past few weeks. There he talked, and there she listened. When he came to the end of his tale of hardship and woe, she asked him if she wanted to help him forget. His answer surprised them both, Scott Summers answered no. He just wanted someone to talk to, someone who could understand what it was he was going through, she had gone through the same thing. She then asked if there was anything else she could do to help him. This time he answered affirmatively. He asked, already knowing she wouldn't be able to, if she would stay at the school, if only for a few months. Her answer surprised them both, Emma Frost answered yes. She made only one demand, though. That she be allowed her own room, adjacent, though, to his. He accepted her claim, and together they left to find the professor to discuss the arrangement.

Emma Frost could help, she would say that she understood, and he knew the truth. Only she could ever understand. She had been there to be able to understand.


End file.
